I am pretty sure that I am burnt out. I am not a medical doctor or a therapist or anything, but I am tired and unmotivated and am simply languishing. According to an article in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/05/13/the-6-causes-of-professional-burnout-and-how-to-avoid-them/?sh=373c4a211dde by John Rampton, the causes include a lack of control, insufficient reward, lack of community, an absence of fairness, conflict of values, and work overload. These causes are developed in the book “The Truth about Burnout: how organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it”. To be honest, when I review this I don’t see causes of burnout, I see how academic STEM values Indigenous people and others who are in positions of precarious employment and non-tenure stream.
I definitely feel like I have a lack of control of my work. There are always a number of requests and questions to address. There is also the sense that because of my position as a contract researcher that I cannot control. I am sure there are some things that I can control but to be honest, most of my work gets dictated by the interests of more senior faculty in ways I do not feel that I can say no without incurring penalties in my career.
There is definitely the issue of insufficient reward in my work. I routinely do things that I am told are important and valuable, but not important enough to be considered in annual reviews for my job. At the same time, I am routinely informed that I am not qualified to be rewarded because I don’t contribute enough to the stuff that does count. In that analysis I am compared to scientists who start with fair fewer responsibilities and thus have the time and space to excel in the things that count. To be honest in my institution lots of things count, but research is the one ring to rule them all.
My institution and department host a lot of great scientists, but I am the only Indigenous astronomer. I am one of the very few Indigenous people in my field in Canada. There is no community available and the community that is my field thrives on exploiting colonization for the benefit of building facilities and obtaining funding. More people in my field get feted for supporting ongoing colonization than anyone for supporting Indigenous peoples and rights. The truth is that instead of a lack of community there are many people who refuse to acknowledge my existence.
I would suggest everything above is unfair. But, fairness doesn’t exist in my institution. I only have a position because of the inappropriate behaviors by colleagues that sabotaged an opportunity at a permanent position in academia. Instead, they benevolently offered me another contract. Instead of doing anything to fix the issues, the institution just gave new contract faculty the same benefits. I don’t believe there is any fairness in academia, and if I am wrong it is only for those in power.
My workplace does not value Indigeneity in any way. The great advances right now are holding sessions in Indigenous competency training, not hiring or supporting Indigenous people. Equity and diversity discussion is marginally better than thoughts and prayers. I have listened to senior influential people say horrible things about Indigenous peoples and about Indigenous knowledges. Creating space for Indigeneity is not valued in astronomy and physics.
Just about every academic probably feels overloaded with work. I have the same workload as my tenured and better-paid colleagues, but then I work on integrating Indigenous knowledges in teaching, and consult with colleagues on including Indigenous peoples in their EDI activities that get them credit but do next to nothing. I spend a lot of time on this kind of work, none of it counts to the people who make decisions.
Hmmm… maybe I’m not burned out, maybe I’m just an Indigenous person in academic STEM.